


Restless

by closetgeekasaurus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Autistic Keith (Voltron), Autistic Pidge (Voltron), F/M, Insomnia, Other, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, brief mention of klance, insomniac pidge, pidge uses she and they pronouns, sorry if it's disorienting, switches between present and past tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:06:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8145080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closetgeekasaurus/pseuds/closetgeekasaurus
Summary: Another day, another bout of crippling dysphoria and exhaustion.





	

Another day, another bout of crippling dysphoria and exhaustion.

Pidge sighs and climbs out of the bed, wincing as their feet hit the wintry sting of the ship's floor. The Altean castle is definitely not friendly to bare feet, or bare skin in general, actually. Everything is always too cold. The walls, the floors, any surface, really. Luckily, Pidge has a space heater. Of sorts.

It's about one in the morning, according to the timezone they finally set in the castle. She's been in bed since about 10 and has just tossed and turned, restless as usual. Hopefully the space heater will also solve the little issue of not sleeping.

Pidge has never been able to keep a regular sleeping schedule. A combination of relentless thoughts, insomnia, and a caffeine addiction has made sure of that. But between coffee and power naps, she's always been able to manage before. It wasn't until they had been up in space for a few days that Pidge realized they were going to have a problem.

It wasn't an unusual thing to go for a few days without sleep. And as someone who was completely and utterly fascinated by the cosmos, she didn't think that being surrounded by it would negatively impact her sleep.

They were wrong, obviously. Because not only did Pidge now not have caffeine, or the ability to just crash and sleep wherever and whenever, or an even an internet connection to distract herself into exhaustion, it turns out that she was completely and utterly terrified by the vastness of space.

They tried to ration with themself over it. It was one thing to idolize space when you were safely on Earth, observing it from a distance. It was another thing entirely to be surrounded by it almost nonstop, the only breaks being landings on alien planets for a few hours. No matter where she looked, the galaxy was there. Empty and cold. Beautiful, for sure, but lethal. It wouldn't be hard to die out here. All of the members of Voltron had come close several times over the last three years.

She stops short, breath catching in her throat at the realization. Three years. They're all aware of how long they've been up here, but every now and then the number will take someone by surprise and send them into a state of strangely quiet panic. Three years they've spent out in space, fighting, running, hiding. Never able to stop, needing to be suspicious of everyone.,

Pidge has missed birthdays- fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth. They're not even sure of what the date is and how close she is to being a "real adult"- not that her age really matters. Everyone on the team treated her like a child at first, since she had been only fourteen. That had stopped when Hunk and Lance were being captured and Pidge shot her Bayard through the throats of their Galran captors. They had all stood in shock, staring at her- a fourteen year old murderer.

She remembers every detail as clear as day, too. The wet tearing as the electrified blade cut through the first soldier's neck, the disgusting squelch as she wrenched it out to turn and shoot it towards the one grabbing Lance. How his body had twitched before he slumped down to the floor, still convulsing, and the spray of blood that they were all spattered with when she tugged the Bayard away to return it to its holster.

She still shudders at the thought. They've all had to kill Galra soldiers, sure. It was just something you had to do in a war. But the first time is always the worst. Everyone had tiptoed around her for the next few weeks, unsure of how to react while she teetered on a precarious ledge between hysteria and acceptance. Constantly mentally debating with herself, you're a good person, you're a bad person, you're a good person, you're a bad person....

They've all steeled themselves to it now, though. Don't bat an eye when someone shoots half an alien's face off, even make jokes about it on occasion. All of them are mostly numb to it now.

They think of their mother and instantly shake their head as if to rid themself of the thought; this was exactly the reason Pidge couldn't sleep, because their brain literally never shut up. She should be resting, not obsessing over such morbid things that she couldn't control.

Everyone worries about the sleeping problems. Shiro had been the first to bring it up, tentative and tactful as usual. "Keith says he saw you in the training room at two this morning... Lance noticed your light on at seven am... Hunk headed to bed at eleven and you were still up..."

Eventually Lance made a joke, sarcastically asking Pidge: "When do you sleep? You look like a zombie."

They didn't process it as a joke; it was a bad day, Pidge occasionally had trouble understanding sarcasm from other people in the first place, and it had been about fifty hours since she last slept. She stared at him blankly, mouth opening and closing, unable to come up with a response. Instantly his brow had dropped with worry and he knelt down, putting his hands on Pidge's shoulders and asking if they needed anything.

So of course, Hunk had been the next person to bring it up. He stopped by her room at five in the morning for help with a technical error, worried that he was waking her. It wasn't until he realized that she was wearing the same shorts, borrowed from Keith, and t-shirt, filched from Lance, that she had been wearing for the last three days. her hair was unbrushed, and there were empty food wrappers scattered everywhere. She nonchalantly brushed him off, trying to make a joke out of it like Lance always did whenever he had a problem, chuckling "Oh, it doesn't matter, I never sleep anyway."

Allura and Coran approached her, asking how humans were so resilient and could withstand such long wake cycles, and she had to explain that they couldn't. much to the Altean's confusion. And Keith, with his own sleeping problems, noticed Pidge joining him in the training room more and more often in the middle of the night, an attempt on both of their parts to force themselves into exhaustion until they would pass out and finally get some rest.

So, the solution was clearly sleeping medication, right? Wrong.

It worked for Keith, like a dream. He slept through the night after taking a dose of some alien herb or something, never remembering any of his dreams, no longer sleep walking or having night terrors or disrupting his own sleeping cycle. When Pidge finally relented into taking it, she had an overreaction to it. They were miserable, cooped up in the medbay and hooked up to countless machines measuring her bodily functions to make sure her heart and lungs didn't shut down from whatever it was. No one understood why they had the extreme response when it worked as intended on Keith, but it didn't matter. The point was it didn't work.

The team had tried everything they could think of to try and help Pidge sleep. None of it worked, except for her own little solution.

She pads down the hallway, only the dim lighting of the castle's "night" setting to guide her way. They could navigate this path in the pitch black, it was so familiar to them now. It was getting to be a near nightly visit, and Hunk teases her and asks why she even bothers with going to her own room in the first place.

The door scanner accepts her as soon as her palm presses against it, the glass as cold as the rest of the castle and sending a wave of goosebumps up their arm. With a gentle push of air and a tiny wooshing noise, it opens, granting her access.

It's completely dark, of course. This is how they like it, so it doesn't bother them at all. They feel their way carefully along the floor to make sure nothing has been dropped and left behind to trip her up. The coast is clear. She reaches the bed, gently tugs the covers back and climbs in as quietly as she can manage.

It's so warm; it would be stifling if she weren't so icy from the rest of the castle. But for now it's pleasant, homey and welcoming. Despite her reservations, she presses her feet against his calves to warm them.

He starts and grumbles, and she can barely catch the glint of a light in his eye. "Pidge?" he mumbles drowsily, already bringing up a hand to rub at his face.

"Hi Hunk," she whispers back. "I got cold."

He groans good naturedly. "Your feet are like ice," he complains, curling up tighter.

"You're such a a baby," she shoots back, folding her arms around herself and pressing against him, burying her face just below the crook of his neck. She can feel the stubble of his beard scratching at her forehead, from where it creeps down to the underside of his chin and throat. "Just be glad I didn't stick them up your shirt."

He shivers, whether it's from the memory of the one time Pidge actually did ram their hands up his shirt to warm them against his chest or her lower temperature is uncertain. He doesn't complain any further, opting to wrap his arms around the smaller paladin instead and let his eyes slip closed.

Pidge is downright gleeful. She's so pleased with the whole situation she could piss Pepsi, but she remains still and doesn't squirm. Although Hunk is very accommodating to her, he needs his sleep too. Plus, he's a warm blooded male who happens to be attracted to her. No need to make things awkward, which too much movement on Pidge's part tends to do.

Instead of making conversation, which she has the urge to do, she forces herself just to think instead. They think of Hunk, of herself, and how this all started in the first place.

Messily.

Pidge had always considered themself to be the most grayscale piece of shit there was- nonbinary (likely a demigirl, but no one was really certain), asexual, and most importantly, aromantic. They flaunted it and used it as both a joke and an excuse for everything. But as things got more serious, and everyone grew up, Pidge started questioning a lot.

Gender was one of the big things. A biological female who told everyone, "I can't man up, I'm a girl." Who was biologically female, and was okay with being biologically female... most days. A female who had also spent almost a year disguised as a boy, dressing, speaking, and living as a boy. Who had always been tomboyish, and had play-pretended that she was a boy, or even better, a robot. A female who was always mistaken for so many different genders it wasn't even funny, on the human gender binary as well as the various alien concepts of gender they encountered. 'She' still felt... ok, but something was missing.

So for a while Pidge used 'they', and only 'they'. But that wasn't right either. She tried 'he' as well, thinking all of her time playing at being a boy wasn't playing after all. Once again, it was a miss.

Most of the time they still felt... blended. 'She' and 'they' used together felt best, but there were still the occasional time where 'he' was definitely good too. A label didn't really matter anyway, so long as the people who mattered to them knew who they were.  So they dealt with it.

But she had never been interested in relationships. Never, not ever. "Relationships are a waste of time," she would drawl. "It's not like we're going to survive long enough to safely reproduce, being intergalactic crime fighters or whatever. It's pointless." While the other paladins had their fair share of trysts, whirlwind romances, and crushes, Pidge was proud to say that they had never "caved."  They saw it as almost a competition of sorts, one where she came out on top.

Until the movie "love at first sight" moment.

Except, of course, it wasn't at first sight, nor did it all happen at once. It was more of gentle nudges in the direction of something that wasn't quite platonic, but wasn't quite romantic. Something foreign and between categories, the awkward transition state of those who had always been friends developing an attraction to the other. And when did Pidge first realize it?

In the kitchen, of course. Place of romantic dreams, absolutely.

He was cooking, not an unusual sight, and trying to teach Pidge to not burn everything she touched, which was a feat in itself. He helped her make a mix for cupcakes and left her to put it in the oven and make sure everything was on the correct settings. Twenty minutes later they came back to a smoking mess and a blaring alarm as the confections burned, charred beyond recognition.

Pidge had been certain Hunk was going to be livid. It was something he had been scrounging weird alien ingredients for, saving and on the look out for everything he would need for months, just to make these cupcakes. And then she had burned them.

They glanced up at his face, fearful and almost shy, expecting him to explode. He was strangely silent, blank faced and staring at the mess. She opened her mouth to let the apologies tumble out, but before they could come. he burst into wild laughter.

"Pidge," he gasped. "This is the best thing I've ever seen. For once in your life you're not being a smug asshole, and these are such a mess, I just-" He couldn't finish whatever thought he had, interrupting himself with more chortles. She stared at him, mouth gaping, before letting a giggle escape. He pulled her into a hug, as gleeful as a child. It wasn't anything new, he was a hugger with everyone. There was absolutely nothing different about it.

Yet later that night, when Pidge couldn't sleep, she found something new keeping her awake.

It wasn't even obvious to her at first. More of a quiet obsession that she didn't understand. They assumed it was some strange, intense version of friendship, one where for some reason you found yourself playing the sound of your friend laughing on an endless loop at the strangest times of the day and sought out both his company and his approval constantly. No big deal, right?

Except it clearly was a big deal, because Pidge couldn't get over it.

It was puzzling to say the least. They kept notes, actual notes on their strange new feelings and what used to be the most mundane experiences with Hunk. Carefully observed her own behavior as well as Hunk's, hoping to see some sort of change that would explain everything, something she could point to and say "Aha! There it is, a reasonable explanation!" Except she couldn't note any concrete changes, at least, not accurately, because she hadn't been paying this much attention to their dynamic with eachother before. So nothing was for certain, which was one of the things that was always guaranteed to drive Pidge nuts- an unsolved variable.

It was Lance of all people who made her start to realize. She had been hanging out with Hunk, per usual, chattering and watching alien movies neither of them understood, sitting close together on the couch and snacking on whatever it was Hunk had made, which tasted like an unusual combination of caramel and marshmallows. Rather than being overly sweet it was pleasant and light, almost fruity in the way it filled them. Pidge was half in Hunk's lap, resting their head on his chest right below where his arm connected to his torso. It wasn't an unusual position to find them in after a day spent together, but it was still somewhat noteworthy considering Pidge normally couldn't stand to be touched by anyone except Hunk, and sometimes Shiro.

Lance had strode in, overconfident as usual and on the prowl for entertainment, As soon as he spied the other two paladins he slouched over, a lecherous grin on his face, intent on both teasing them and stealing the food.

"Hey lovebirds," he said casually, letting himself fall onto the couch next to Hunk. "Whatcha watching?"

"Lance," Hunk chided. "C'mon man, you're gonna make Pidge uncomfortable!"

Normally Pidge wasn't afflicted by Lance's teasing, but this time she found her face turning bright red as she shifted away from Hunk, opting to curl into a ball against the far side of the couch instead. She didn't even understand why she was doing it, didn't even think of it, just one second they were laying on Hunk like normal and the next they were mortified, curling loosely into a ball.

"Lance, you're a cockmunch," Pidge snapped, digging her hands into the bowl of food. "Get out of here so I can enjoy my movie."

"Awww, someone's embawassed!" He smiled at her in the way one would a child. reaching out to pinch her cheeks.

"Shut up," she snapped, smacking his hands away before lurching forward off the couch. "I'm going to my room."

They could hear Hunk alternating between reprimanding Lance and pleading Pidge to come back, but she ignored it, stomping back to their room blindly. Once the door slid shut she threw herself onto her bed, still disgusted by her own behavior as well as Lance's. On one hand, they were mad at Lance for being an asshole, but on the other... what had he even said to make them so upset?

Was it his overly cocky demeanor? The way he just waltzed into the room, swinging his hips in the way that meant he was intent on causing trouble? How she had seen his eyes darting towards the food bowl, greedy and shining, betraying his thoughts of thievery?

No, none of that was right. The more she thought on it the less sense it made. They stewed over it for hours, tossing the whole scenario over in their head over and over and over, until it clicked.

They hadn't gotten flustered until Lance had called her and Hunk lovebirds.

Instantly her brain rejected even the idea of it. She vehemently shook her head, as if she could dislodge it from her mind and throw it to the floor. What the fuck was wrong with her? She wasn't some stupid teenage girl who got crushes on anyone who so much as looked her way, she was a Paladin of Voltron! The team's poster child for complete celibacy and abstinence, grayscaled aromantic through and through! For her to even consider... and Hunk! Her best friend!

She sat up and groaned, burying her face in her hands, nearly ready to weep. Even if she wanted to risk ruining literally everything about her way of life, her comfortable rhythm and balance, she had no idea what she was doing. How to flirt. How to ask someone out. Hell, how to be attractive.

They had seen the people Hunk liked, and it seemed to normally be girls. Overly feminine, delicate in one way or another even if their species was masculine, like Shay. Cute, giggly. Sweet girls who behaved like a lady should. Someone who needed protecting.

She could never be someone like that. She was Pidge- androgynous, a techhead grease monkey who took care of her own problems. She trained and fought just as hard as any guy, even saved the asses of her teammates more than they could count. She wasn't ladylike at all, the thought of dresses and skirts repelled her. She belched at the dinner table and had even been talked into a farting contest with Lance once. She could never be the type of girl he would want. Hell, she wasn't even really a girl.

She threw off her blankets and headed into the bathroom, flicking on the lights when she entered. Her reflection greeted her, pale and agitated, hair snarled and sticking up from her head like a bird's nest. Even in just a t-shirt and track shorts she was so much more masculine than she was feminine. Not cute, just Pidge.

She frowned and her reflection mocked her action. She ran a finger across her collarbones, a little more prominent than usual. Sleeplessness and no glasses made her vision bleary, but she could still spot the telltale signs of stress.If they could see them, Hunk would be sure to point it out.

She was fucked.

The next several weeks were spent in an agonizing limbo of stressing over being around Hunk too much and worrying about not being around him enough. She was acting too casually, acting too different. Drawing too much attention to themself, being too reserved. No matter what they did, Pidge couldn't get the anxious whispers in her brain to shut up. It was making them even more miserable, making them get even less sleep, and making them feel generally more horrible than usual.

Hunk, being the wonderful friend he is, immediately noticed. He fretted over her, offering food and drinks, hugs, feelings jam sessions, new tech and robots, basically anything he could think of. He didn't understand what was wrong, and he worried that she was falling into a bad depressive episode. She tried to assure him that they weren't, but it was hard to convince him otherwise when they couldn't provide a valid reason for their behavior.

This time, it was Keith who put the puzzle pieces together. He and Pidge had started spending more time together as well, which was bound to happen sooner or later when it was only you and six other people stuck out in space together. But the amount of things they got along over was actually surprising- Lance had deemed them the "aliens exist and I'm better than all of you" squad, much to both of their amusement. Constant jokes about making shirts for their "squad" were thrown back and forth, and Pidge was pretty certain if they ever got back to Earth the first place they were stopping was a shirt shop.

Keith didn't even approach it with any tact or subtlety. He just asked Pidge to spar with him, and then as soon as the training room doors closed behind the two of them he turned and asked; "You have a crush on Hunk don't you?"

Pidge almost lost it, sorely tempted to shoot her Bayard into his leg and taze him. They didn't take well to confrontation or accusation, especially over something they considered as touchy as this. Instead of throwing a temper tantrum she grabbed the little silicone charm from her necklace and started chewing furiously on it, something they had been trying not to do all the time in front of people. Keith, being autistic as well, was a bit of a different circumstance, but still.

His eyebrows shot up as he watched her gnaw on the little triangular charm, vaguely reminiscent of a ouija board piece. "I'm not asking to make you mad, I'm just trying to figure out why you're acting so differently."

"And what the hell makes you think it's a crush?"

"You started blushing around him."

"I've been running a fever!"

He cocked his head. "No you haven't. Besides, it's only when he says certain stuff or gets really close or something."

She sputtered and nearly ripped the cord of her necklace. "Keith, c'mon!"

"Just answer me."

"Yes," they spat, face red.

"Okay. Are you gonna tell him?"

"No," she sighed, sitting on the floor and crossing her legs. "It's not gonna happen."

"It could if you talk to him."

"No way."

He dropped it and let them stew for a while before pulling them up for a training session. She felt a little better after beating out her frustrations, but it was mainly because they were too tired to worry about it.

So imagine their surprise when bright and early next morning, Hunk was knocking on her door, concerned and very discernibly pink.

"Pidge, can we talk?"

"Fine," she sighed, throwing the door open the rest of the way. They had been actually sleeping for once and Hunk had woke her up, not that she was going to say anything and make him feel bad. He entered and sat on the foot of the bed, glancing around nervously and fiddling with his hands.

"What, Hunk?"

"Ok, umm... I wanna ask you something."

"I figured. Spit it out."

"Okay, so, it's kind of a sensitive thing, and I don't want to upset you or have this affect anything, and if it's something you don't wanna talk about or deal with that's fine, I just want to make sure you're okay with talking about it, and-"

"Hunk. Today, please. I'm not getting any younger."

He looked up at her, shy, embarrassed and unsure of himself. "Do you like me?"

She felt her face turn pink but she fought to maintain her composure. The best course of action was clearly to feign ignorance.

"Of course I like you. You're my best friend."

"That's... not what I meant. I meant like... more than that?"

She cocked her head. "Explain."

"Like, maybe like a boyfriend?"

"I... I wouldn't know. I've never had a boyfriend."

"But you would know if you felt like that, right?"

"I can't say for certain." Both of them know she's dancing around the issue, but she's sure as hell not going to be the one to admit anything. Rule number one of life in general, never get backed into a corner that you can't talk yourself out of.

"Keith told me," Hunk finally blurted.

She lurched forward from her seat, positively seething. "I'm going to fucking murder him," she growled.

His face lit up like a miniature sun, almost blinding in the way the happiness was shining out from him. "So you do like me!"

They sneered and stared at him, incredulous. "Hunk!"

"Pidge!" He shot back. "Do you know how good this is?"

"No," they moaned, burying their face in her hands.

"What? Pidge, don't freak out!"

"Too late."

"No no no! It's a good thing, I promise! Can I hug you?"

"Do not have pity for me," she snapped.

"No! No way, this isn't pity! I'm happy!"

"Why?!"

"Pidge, I've liked you for, like, forever!"

She stopped and looked at him, really looked at him. He was downright beaming, squirming with excitement. "What?"

"I didn't want to say anything and freak you out," he babbled. "I knew you were never really interested in relationships or anything and we were best friends, y'know? But Keith knew I liked you because we talked, and once you told him he told me and I'm really glad he did!"

She was flabbergasted. No wonder Keith had pushed the issue so much; he was in on it the whole time.

After Hunk had managed to convince her that yes, he was "for real", she tentatively agreed to try dating him. At first they had been nervous, Pidge immensely anxious but Hunk only slightly concerned. It turned out to not be that much different from how their dynamic already was, but with a few added benefits.

The first time he had kissed them, they thought that they were going to swoon. It had been so small and sweet, as well as Pidge's first kiss. It was after a mission, where Pidge and Lance had to separate from the rest of the group and came dangerously close to being taken down by Galra fighter ships.The two of them had arrived a solid four hours after everyone else, where they were greeted by Hunk and Keith respectively. Keith had apparently been as tactless as usual when he met Lance in the blue hangar, pulling him down into an aggressive kiss that was more force than it was romance.

Hunk meanwhile, was worried sick. The second the hatch to the Green Lion opened up and Pidge limped out, he rushed forward, pulling her into a quick hug and transitioning almost immediately into a kiss. They were both shocked by the unexpected affection. Pidge stood in stunned silence and Hunk immediately began apologizing, thinking he had crossed some sort of line.

She fought around the flutters in her stomach and the sparks going off in her brain, assuring him that what he did certainly had not been a bad thing. From then on, he was less hesitant to be affectionate with her, giving her little pecks on the cheek and holding hands as the two of them traversed the halls of the castle.

Pidge smiles, remembering the early days of their relationship. Hunk feels the pull of her lips against his skin and quietly questions what was making them grin.

"You," they mumbles. "More specifically, when we first started dating."

He laughs and shifts, pulling them even closer. "And to think, you weren't ever gonna say anything to me."

"Ok, you are literally the worst. I'm gonna leave you."

"And not have a space heater? As if!"

"You got me there." She nuzzles her face into the dip of his clavicle, enjoying the dizzying amount of warmth he's outputting.

"Hey... get some sleep, ok?"

"Ok, Hunk."

Just like every other night, she falls asleep with him and stays asleep through the night. Any time she twitches from a nightmare, Hunk is there to soothe it away, keeping watch over her.


End file.
